Barney's Version (50 page)

Nothing is what I said, because I couldn't stop retching.

“Jesus, look what you're doing to your carpet. Where can I find a basin to bring you?”

O'Hearne leaned over and offered a hand to raise me off the floor, but I shook my head, no, fearful of another pummelling. “The only thing for that carpet now is a shampoo. Well,
merci beaucoup
for the beer.”

I groaned.

“And if and when your buddy, the long-distance swimmer, turns up, do be good enough to give us a call, eh?”

On his way out, O'Hearne managed to step on my hand. “Whoops. Sorry.”

I lay on the floor for an hour, maybe longer, after O'Hearne and his minions drove off, then I managed to pour myself another Laphroaig, bolting it down, and rang John Hughes-McNoughton. He wasn't at home or in his office. I found him at Dink's and told him that the cops had paid me a visit. “Your voice sounds funny,” he said.

“O'Hearne beat the shit out of me. I want him charged.”

“I hope you didn't answer any questions.”

I thought it was best to tell John everything, including O'Hearne's discovery of my father's snub-nosed revolver, and my speaking harshly to him before we parted.

“You grabbed him by the lapels and shook him?”

“I think so. But only after he hit me.”

“I want you to do me a favour, Barney. I've still got a few bucks in the bank. It's yours. But I want you to find another lawyer.”

“I'm also going to need you for my divorce. But, hey, we no longer need a hooker and a private detective. I caught her in the act. Boogie will be my witness.”

“Only he's probably dead.”

“He'll turn up. Oh, there's something else I should mention. She knows about Miriam.”

“How come?”

“How would I know? People talk. Maybe we were seen together.
She never should have said that about Miriam's voice
.”

“What are you talking about now?”

“I blabbed. Okay, I shouldn't have. But I did. Look, John, I can't go to prison. I'm in love.”

“We never met. I don't know you. That's final. Where are you phoning from?”

“My cottage.”

“Hang up.”

“You're paranoid. That would be illegal.”

“Hang up right now.”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Early the next morning in Montreal I was wakened by the doorbell. It was O'Hearne with a warrant for my arrest for murder. And it was Lemieux who put the cuffs on me.

The children never tired of stories about my courtship of Miriam, rejoicing in our naughtiness, constantly pressing for more details.

“You mean he ran from his own wedding and followed you onto the train to Toronto?”

“He did.”

“You're bad, Daddy,” said Kate.

A solemn Saul looked up from his book and said, “I wasn't born yet.”

“What time did the train leave for Toronto?” asked Michael for the umpteenth time.

“Around ten o'clock,” said Miriam.

“If the hockey game ended at, say, ten-thirty, and the train left at approximately ten, I don't see how —”

“Michael, we've been through this before. It must have been a late departure.”

“And you made him get off at —”

“I still don't see how —”

“I have not yet come to the end of my sentence,” said Kate.

“Oh, you're such a pain in the —”

“You may speak only when I have come to the end of a sentence. And you made him get off at Montreal West. Period.”

“Actually she was secretly miffed that I didn't ride all the way to Toronto with her.”

“It was his wedding night, dear.”

“He was pissed,” said Saul.

“Daddy, were you. Question mark.”

“Certainly not.”

“But it's true, isn't it, that you couldn't stop staring at her, comma, even though it was your wedding night. Period.”

“He never even asked me to dance.”

“Mummy thought he was just a bit goofy. Period.”

“If you were staring, tell me what she was wearing at the time.”

“A layered blue chiffon off-the-shoulder cocktail dress. Ha, ha, ha.”

“And is it true, comma, that the first time he took you to lunch he was sick all over the place, question mark.”

“I wasn't born until three years later.”

“Yeah, and I'm surprised they didn't declare it a national holiday. Like Queen Victoria's birthday.”

“Children, please.”

“You went with him to his hotel room on your first date, question mark. Shame on you. Period.”

“Mummy is Daddy's third wife,” said Michael, “but we're the only children.”

“Are you sure about that?” I asked.

“Daddy!” said Kate.

“I had my hair done and wore a sexy new dress and —”

“Mummy!”

“— and he didn't even say I looked nice.”

“Then what happened?”

“They drank champagne.”

“Daddy's first wife became famous and —”

“We know that already.”

“— and she did that yucky ink drawing he has. Period.”

“It's worth a lot of money now,” said Michael.

“You would think of that,” said Saul.

“It sure doesn't sound very romantic,” said Kate, “his puking like that on your first date.”

“The truth is, I was terrified of making a bad impression on your mother.”

“Didn't you?”

“She'll have to answer that one.”

“His approach was original. I'll give your father that much.”

“So you talked and walked,” said Kate, “
and then what
?” she asked, big-eyed, the boys now equally attentive.

“Not everything is your business,” said Miriam, and there was that dimple in her cheek again.

“Aw, come on. We're old enough now.”

“I can remember,” said Kate, “all of us being in the car in Toronto that time —”

“The Toyota.”

“It happened to be the Volvo station wagon.”

“Will you please both stop interrupting me. And we passed a certain apartment building —”

“Where Mummy used to live.”

“— and Daddy gave you one of those looks and your cheeks turned red as tomatoes, and you leaned over and kissed him.”

“We're entitled to some secrets,” I said.

“When Mummy was living in that building Daddy was still married to that fat woman,” said Kate, puffing out her cheeks, sticking out her belly, and struggling across the room.

“That's enough. And she wasn't fat then.”

“And Mummy says neither were you.”

“I'm dieting, for Christ's sake.”

“We don't want you to have a heart attack, Daddy.”

“It's not the smoked meat, it's the cigars I'm worried about.”

“And is it true that Mummy had to pay your bill at the Park Plaza the next morning?”

“I forgot my credit cards in Montreal and they didn't know me there in those days. Christ, isn't anything sacred?”

“Boy, are you ever lucky she married you.”

“That's not a very nice thing to say,” said Kate.

“Period or comma? You didn't say.”

“He's a good dad.”

“I went to the Park Plaza to meet him for breakfast,” said Miriam, “and there was a commotion at the hotel desk, everybody watching, and of course it was your father. He hadn't brought his personal chequebook or any identification with him, and naturally that was the desk clerk's fault. The manager came out, and was gesturing for the security man, when I intervened, offering my credit card. But the clerk was outraged. ‘We will accept your credit card, Miss Greenberg,' he said, ‘but first Mr. Panofsky must apologize for calling me names too filthy to repeat.' Your father said, ‘All I did was to call him a typical Toronto prick, but then I've always been given to understatement.' ‘Barney,' I said, ‘I want you to apologize to this gentleman right now.' Your father, as he is wont to do, bit his lip and scratched his head. ‘I will apologize for her sake, but I don't really mean it.' The clerk snorted. ‘I will accept Miss Greenberg's credit card in order not to embarrass her further.' Your father was about to lunge when I shoved him back from the counter. ‘That's most understanding of you,' I said to the clerk, and of course we had to go elsewhere for breakfast, your
father growling throughout. Now, if you don't mind, I must get dressed or I'll be late.”

“Where are you going?”

“Blair Hopper is lecturing on ‘The World of Henry James' at McGill, and he was thoughtful enough to send us two tickets.”

“Don't tell me you're going, Daddy?”

“He most certainly is not. Michael, would you like to come with me?”

“Daddy said he'd take me to the hockey game.”

“I'll go,” said Saul.

“Oh, great,” said Kate. “I'm staying home alone.”

“You're being abandoned,” I said, “because nobody likes you. Miriam, I'll meet you and Blair for a nightcap at the Maritime Bar afterwards.”

“Would you now?”

“I'm sure they can come up with some herbal tea there. Or at least mineral water.”

“Barney, you don't care for him. He knows that. But
I'll
meet you at the Maritime Bar.”

“Still better.”

Blessed (or, rather, cursed) with hindsight, I now realize that Blair was after Miriam from the first day he caught sight of her at our cottage. I can hardly reproach any man for that. Instead, I blame myself for underestimating him. Give the bastard credit. Over the years, he kept turning up, insinuating himself into our family, undermining it, like dry rot nibbling at the beams of a house built to last. When the kids were still young and a handful, and we were once in Toronto for a couple of days
en route
to visit friends in Georgian Bay, Blair arrived at our hotel with a discreet bunch of freesias for Miriam and a bottle of Macallan for me. He offered to take the kids to the Science Centre, so that Miriam and I could enjoy an afternoon off. Mike, Saul, and Kate returned to the hotel laden with toys. Educational toys, of course, not the warmongering water pistols and cap guns enabling
me to play cowboys-and-Indians and other racist games with them. “Bang bang. That's what you get for scalping nice Jewish widows and orphans, and not doing your homework.”

When Michael won the mathematics prize on his graduation from Selwyn House, there was a letter of congratulation from “Uncle” Blair and an inscribed copy of a book of essays on Canadiana that he had edited. I read it with rising anger, because the truth is it wasn't that bad.

On another trip to Toronto, this time without the children, Miriam asked, “I suppose you're busy for lunch?”

“With The Amigos Three, alas.”

“Blair has offered to take me to lunch and to a
vernissage
at the Isaacs Gallery.”

I told her about the afternoon I had run into Duddy Kravitz at a gallery on 57th Street in New York. Duddy, who was then furnishing his Westmount manse, pointed out three pictures that interested him, and sat down with the epicene, hyperventilating owner. “How much if I take all three off your hands?” he asked.

“That would come to thirty-five thousand dollars.”

Duddy winked at me, unstrapped his Rolex wristwatch, set it down on the tooled leather desktop, and said, “I'm prepared to write you a cheque for twenty-five thousand, but this offer is only good for three minutes.”

“Surely, you jest.”

“Two minutes and forty-five seconds.”

After a longish pause, the owner said, “I could come down to thirty thousand dollars.”

Duddy closed the deal for twenty-five thousand dollars with less than a minute to spare, and invited me back to his suite in the Algonquin to celebrate. “Riva's getting her hair done at Vidal Sassoon's. We're going to Sardi's and then to see
Oliver!
House seats. If you ask me, Oswald was a patsy. That Jack Ruby is connected, you know.”

We consumed eight Scotch miniatures out of his mini-bar, and then Duddy fetched a full teapot he had hidden under the bathroom sink, lined up the miniatures on a table, refilled and capped them, and set them back in place. “How about that?” he said.

Whenever an academic conference brought Blair to Montreal, suspiciously often I realized too late, he would phone in advance to invite us both out to dinner. Once, I remember taking the call, covering the receiver with my hand, and passing it to Miriam. “It's your boyfriend.”

As usual, I pleaded a previous commitment, and urged Miriam to go. “Why hasn't he ever married?”

“Because he's hopelessly in love with me. Aren't you worried?”

“Blair? Don't be ridiculous.”

Once all the children were at school, Miriam's former producer, Kip Horgan, urged her to ease herself back into work, if only as a freelancer to begin with. “You're sorely missed,” he said.

Out to lunch together at Les Halles, Miriam waited until I was into my Remy Martin
XO
and Montecristo before she said, “What would you say if I went back to work?”

“But we don't need the money. We're loaded.”

“Maybe I need the stimulation.”

“You're at the
CBC
all day, what would I do for dinner when I get home?”

“Oh, you're such a bastard, Barney,” she said, leaping up from the table.

“I was only joking.”

“No you weren't.”

“Where are you going? I haven't finished my drink yet.”

“Well your wifey has finished, and I'm going for a walk. Even maids are allowed an afternoon off.”

“Hold it. Sit down for a minute. You know, we've never been to Venice. I'll go straight from here to Global Travel. You go home and pack. We'll get Solange to stay with the kids and we'll leave tonight.”